Contents

History

Not much is revealed about Donover other than that he was married and used to work in construction, but started attending college sometime before 2008. He was also an accomplice of Nate Haskell, a serial killer also known as "The Dick & Jane Killer". His exact involvement is never elaborated upon, though he apparently aided him in some killings by finding victims. He is known to have lured his first victim couple, Joel Steiner and Tiffany Cohen, along with a friend, Gerald Tolliver, by joining them at a concert and handing them spiked marijuana, allowing Haskell to strangle Joel and torture and kill Tiffany in his remote cabin. Donover, and possibly Tolliver, presumably aided Haskell in more killings during the time he was a serial killer and may even have been active participants.

When Haskell was caught and charged with his murders and his defense was about to claim that he couldn't have subdued his male victims, who were larger and stronger than him, and control the female victims on his own, he pleaded guilty so he wouldn't have to share the credit, allowing Donover, Tolliver and any other accomplices he might have had to disappear. Donover presumably went on with his life until 2008, when he found out that Tolliver had become a police informant in an unrelated narcotics case. To keep him from telling them about their involvment in the murders, Donover killed him and with the help of a man named Curtis Keesey, presumably another DJK follower, stuffed the body in a trash bag, sealed it and dumped it in the wilderness.

Six months later, Donover joined forces with Keesey again and abducted a couple, Ian Wallace and Justine Stefani, and attempted to copycat Haskell's M.O. After Wallace was strangled to death and stabbed nine times post-mortem, continuing Haskell's signature, they tried to torture and kill Stefani. However, because neither Donover nor Keesey knew how to control her, she managed to break loose and run, only for them to run her over with her own car. Presumably to cover their tracks, they stuffed her body in the car and torched it. The Las Vegas crime lab investigated the murders, at first suspecting there was a connection to an S&M club Wallace frequented, but came up empty with no other leads besides a shoe print Donover left behind. Not long after that, Donover also killed Keesey for scalping two Paramore tickets taken from Wallace and Stefani.

Five weeks after the murders of Ian Wallace and Justine Stefani, Donover attended a seminar in criminal psychology held by Dr. Ray Langston during which Haskell would be interviewed by the class via webcam. During the Q&A part, Donover seized the opportunity and asked Haskell how he controlled his female victims. Haskell also subtextually told him where to dump his next male victim. After the seminar, Donover abducted Jeffrey and Maureen Masters, strangled Jeffrey to death, stabbed him ten times post-mortem, dumped his body near Joel Steiner's burial site and took Maureen to the cabin where Haskell had tortured and killed his female victims. Thanks to Haskell calling Langston and revealing where Joel was buried, the Las Vegas crime lab found Jeffrey's body and were able to track down Donover to the cabin. When he saw the SWAT team approaching through security cameras, he tried to shoot and kill Maureen, only to be gunned down himself.

Modus Operandi

When Donover killed lone victims, he strangled them. When he copycatted Haskell, he did so very closely to the way he himself did it, even continuing Haskell's signature of stabbing the male victim post-mortem.